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Getting Started
This guide is meant for relatively new players. For a more in-depth guide aimed at slightly more experienced players, see Game Guide. Intro Battle Brothers puts you in the shoes of the leader of a mercenary band in the lands of medieval Germany. You'll find yourself pitted against noble armies, fighting raiding barbarians, beating back the pillaging greenskins, ridding the land of monstrous beasts, and outwitting the nefarious mystical beings of yore--all in the name of coin. If you live long enough in this profession, you and your company might even see yourselves with a bit of hard-earned fame from the townsfolk, and possibly even some begrudging respect from the nobles. Which you won't much care about, because you'll be too busy counting stacks and stacks of coins. Alright, enough with the flavor text and on to the guide! Resources There's a handful of important resources to keep an eye on as the leader of your company. Make sure you stock up on them when you see a good price. Crowns - Get more of it by selling goods and equipment, and completing contracts. If you run out of it and brothers don't get paid midday, they won't be happy about it. [[Provisions|'Provisions']] - Stock up before you hit the road, and find a few morsels after most battles. Almost all food will spoil after a time, but luckily your brothers aren't too picky and will always eat the food that has the least life left to it first. That said, they won't like it if you run out of food completely. As you pass through villages, if you see staples like ground grains, bread, and roots and berries for 60g-70g, snap them up. Tools - Used to keep equipment in shape. Tools are probably the resource you'll find yourself managing the most, as you use them after every fight for your own equipment and you can use them to get the most for equipment you want to sell. A good price is 200g-250g for a stack of tools, but early on you might find yourself settling for 270g. Ammunition - When you shoot arrows or hurl throwing weapons, you use ammo to replenish them. 80g-100g is a good deal. Medicine - When a brother is injured, their injury will take a range of days to recover, using up a unit of medicine every day. It can be pretty expensive, so while you shouldn't run out of medicine, new companies might not want to overstock it. 180g-220g are good and reasonable prices. Goals So now that you have your boots on the ground, what should your short-term goals be? Generally speaking, a new company should prioritize # Complete ambitions. Above all else, completing ambitions as fast as possible will propel you forward. You'll get more money when selling equipment, be offered better contracts, and sometimes be rewarded with unique equipment. Pick ambitions you can easily complete, and do so asap. # Stabilize your war chest so you can take advantage of good deals when you see them, hire better recruits, and stock up on supplies to support some extended adventuring. In the very early game you'll have to spend money to make money and balancing the scale can be tough, but once you have some fighting men outfitted with basic equipment, aim to keep at least 5k on hand. # Get better armor. Armor makes a huge impact in the early and mid game. You can double, triple, or even quadruple a brother's effective health with armor. When outfitting your first gaggle of men, you might have to buy a few pieces of cloth, but after that it's probably more effective to take it off of enemy corpses. To do so, you'll need to kill your enemies without wrecking their armor. There's a few tricks for this: #* First, using knives with the Puncture attack to do direct hp damage. It's risky to do this, so a common technique is to pick an enemy target at the beginning of the battle, stick a guy with a shield to them, and only spam shieldwall to tie him up while the rest of your company clears out the rest of the rabble. As brothers free up, peel them off to surround your target so that when he decides to flee he won't be able to move at all. Swap to knives and puncture him down. #* Second, using flails with the Lash attack to only hit the helmet so you can net the body armor. Flails are honestly pretty great weapons in the early and mid game due to this and their good matchup against shields, so acquiring a couple of them is a good strategy. Handing a pair reasonably gifted front liners some flails and letting them lash away on some poor raiders can net you plenty of light and medium armor. # Acquire and train good brothers. Although the previous goals are certainly more pressing as you start your company, the main goal through all of it is to assemble a strong company of warriors. More on this a bit later. Economy Being a savvy shopper and a crafty salesman can net you some good coin. Contracts certainly aren't everything when it comes to making money. Here's a few important mechanics to be aware of. Cities and Relations '''- Cities that like you will give you better prices. Way better prices. Doing local contracts for towns raises your relations with them, but over time your relations with everyone will naturally move towards neutral. A suggestion is to pick a medium-sized village or a city that's near the wilds and make it your home base. Plan your movements to pass by often, and always take reasonable contracts there. Soon you'll always get the best prices there out of most settlements, and when you victoriously come back from the wilds with a wagon chock-full of loot, your efforts will literally pay off. '''Repairing before selling - When you loot equipment from enemies, it will probably be roughed up a bit. Depending on the item, it may be worth it for you to repair it before you sell it. Many players have done the calculations, made the spreadsheets, and have determined rules you should follow... and so have I! But honestly, all those tables and complexities can be summed up with this one simple rule of thumb: If the current durability is less than 10% of the Worth of the item, repairing it will be effective. Let's get some quick example numbers: A Scramasax at 34 durability is worth 425g. You repair that. Why, you ask? Well, if you sold it now at a friendly town (18%), you'd get 76g for it. If you repaired it with reasonably priced tools (260g), you'd come out ahead by 30g. That's almost 40% more for your efforts! Trade goods - Depending on the attached locations, many settlements will produce an excess of goods that you can buy for cheap and sell for a profit at larger cities (or your "home base"). Some of these goods include gems, dyes, copper, and lumber, but even expensive foods such as venison, ham, or wine can make a fine trade good if a settlement produces them. Beware, though: you're a mercenary band--and believe it or not, spilling blood pays better than spilling wine. Augment your economics with trading--it's the cherry on top. Ambushed trade routes - Sometimes you'll find that a settlement has the "Ambushed Trade Routes" situation. Under this effect, all items are traded for a higher value. If you find a city that has this effect, you might want to hold off on completing their contracts to drive off bandits or beasts so you can take advantage of their dire situation. You're a mercenary after all, and where there's strife, there's extra coin. Note that there are other situations that yield similar trade benefits to watch out for. Always be fighting - What's the best way to make money, you ask? Fighting. Nabbing a weapon from the cold grasp of your vanquished opponent is worth more than you'll make on buying and selling some mead... and hey, he's probably wearing some armor you can sell for a pretty penny too. Really, trading and contracts are nice and everything, but they're just extra. Looting equipment and valuables is actually where the money is at in Battle Brothers, so always be looking for a fight. Contracts As you visit towns you'll be offered contracts as a mercenary for hire. Local contracts are fair money, but mostly they provide you with an opportunity to double up on your time as you're looking for fights while getting paid for it. With enough renown, noble contracts will become available, and those are often quite lucrative. Not all contracts are easy money though, and some are just not worth your time. Which to pass on: * Escort caravan - Unless the destination is nearby or you're trying to buy named gear, this contract takes too long. You also can't take extra fights on your way. * Deliver item - The pay is bad and there's no fighting involved. Only take if it's close and you're heading that direction anywhere. * Discover location - Avoid. Abort. Don't take. It's a royal pain to find these locations, and the region they are supposed to be in can be quite deceptive. * Big Game Hunt (Noble) - Unless you need the beast trophies, often times the pay isn't enough to warrant fighting the more troublesome beasts. Also, if the region is far away, the groups of beasts may have dispersed when you get there and they can be hard to track down. * Escort Envoy (Noble) - If it's not nearby, this contract takes too long, and there's rarely fights involved. You also have to sit around and wait for the envoy at the destination for half a day. Which are easy picks: * Destroy an enemy camp - A quick camp fight? What's not to like. * Return a stolen item - Another quick fight? Easy money (and renown!). * Hunt beasts around the settlement - Sometimes the beasts move pretty fast and are hard to track down, but generally you can find the fight pretty quickly. * Investigate cemetery - More quick fights. * Patrol (Noble) - Here's a real opportunity for optimization. Fighting bandits or beasts on the road count towards your head count, but so does fighting enemy camps. Getting paid to take camps is pretty nice! On top of that, settlements that you patrol get the Safe Roads situation, which gives some solid buffs including more shop item availability. A note on contract negotiations: the only choice that is even marginally worth it is the top choice, "We need to be paid more for this." And only once per contract. You can get a 3% to 10% raise by doing so, but you also sacrifice a small amount of faction relationship every time you ask. Because relations are so valuable for trade prices, you probably don't want to do this at settlements that you find yourself doing a lot of business at. Recruiting Just starting What makes a good bro Stars Recruiting costs Try out What influences mercenary backgrounds to appear The Wilds Enemy Camps Named items Battle Tactics Chance to hit Morale Positioning Trash up front Ranged superiority Focusing enemies (morale hits) Tanks Enemies Understanding enemies is part of the game Builds How to make them A few common ones BF tank Nimble tank Two hander Duelist Polearm Archer Bannerman Other Resources Common questions: What's next? When do I start using two-handers? When should I go into the wild? How do I make money? What's the best composition? How do I get good archers? Can I reset a character's perks?